(Hot Springs, AR) October 28, 2010– On October 4, OCS HomeCare and DecisionHealth® announced that the NPMC Home Touch Healthcare has been named a 2010 HomeCare Elite™ agency. The HomeCare Elite™ is a compilation of the top performing home health agencies in the United States. Annually, the top 25 percent of home care agencies nationwide are identified, and this is the 4th time that NPMC Home Touch Healthcare has been recognized.

Director of NPMC Home Touch Healthcare, Teresa Davis, credits the her team’s dedication to quality care and patient safety along with the experienced and skilled staff and nursing team for NPMC’s ability to rank as one of the HomeCare Elite. She said, “Our healthcare professionals have a sincere passion for their work and for helping others. It’s their hard work and dedication along with the continued support and dedication of area physicians with that have led to this distinguished honor.”

NPMC Home Touch Healthcare has been serving the home health needs of Hot Springs and the surrounding communities for more than 17 years. With a home office located in the medical offices building adjacent to NPMC, services provided include skilled nursing, physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, social work, home health aide services. The offices may be contacted at 321-0708 to answer questions about further services, qualifying for home health care and more.

“For five years, the HomeCare Elite has established the industry standard for identifying home health care agencies that perform at the highest level,” says Amanda Twiss, CEO of OCS HomeCare. “We congratulate the 2010 HomeCare Elite for their continued success and commitment to high quality of care and strong financial performance.”

“The 2010 HomeCare Elite have been able to provide quality care to patients while achieving positive financial outcomes, which has not been easy during the recent recession,” says Corinne Kuypers-Denlinger, DecisionHealth vice president of home health. “The top 25 percent of agencies deserve this special recognition.”

OCS HomeCare uses publicly available data from Home Health Compare and the CMS Cost Reports to create the HomeCare Elite list of agencies. Three domains of performance were cumulatively evaluated—quality of care, quality improvement, and financial performance. The quality of care measure indexes agency performance in each of the 12 publicly reported Home Health Compare measures released in April 2010. The quality improvement index is based on changes in the 12 outcomes between data released in September 2009 and April 2010. The financial performance measure represents agency indexed profit margin from the 2009 CMS Cost Reports (or adjusted 2008 results when 2009 data was not available).

Agency performance in each of the three domains was compared against the performance of other organizations in their state and in the country. The three domains were combined into one overall score, using a weighting methodology that gives the greatest importance to quality of care. The top 25 percent of agencies in each region, both facility-based and free standing were identified and added to the national list.

About OCS HomeCare

OCS HomeCare empowers home health and hospice organizations with results-driven data intelligence, plus the largest and most accurate homecare database in the industry. Homecare providers, payers, associations, government agencies, vendors, and consultants all turn to OCS to elevate decision-making, raise the bar on results, and bring home positive outcomes. For more information about OCS HomeCare, please visit OCSHomeCare.com or call 888.325.3396.

About DecisionHealth

For more than 30 years, DecisionHealth® has served as the industry’s leading source for news, analysis and instructional guidance with cutting-edge information sources such as Part B News, Home Health Line, Medicare Compliance Alert, Inside the Joint Commission and Specialty Coders Pink Sheets. Our unique blend of award-winning staff journalists and unmatched access to health care executives, providers, healthcare organization managers and their revenue-cycle staffs enables us to provide solutions, tools and guidance that’s relied on by nearly 100,000 home health care and specialty physician practice professionals. For more information, please visit DecisionHealth.com or call 877.602.3835.